Showing posts with label picnic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label picnic. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

A Canada Day Thank-you Hymn


 



For freedom to get on our knees ten times a day if we so please
For blankets spread with unrushed ease beneath a canopy of trees
For picnic baskets unpacked by three-year-old happiness run wild
For fearless laughter sparkling skyward between mother and her child

For living without giving second thought to constant hunger pangs
A world outside each window, beckoning, without barbed wire fangs
For leisure hours among flowers that no gardener can tame
For the innocence of wonder no matter our age or name

For the beauty of life’s Duties in the trench of home, sweet home
For words like ‘we’ and ‘together’ to weather whatever may come
For family vacations whether one week or an afternoon
For special celebrations or the ordinary, gone too soon

For liquid diamonds splayed against backdrops of blue, after the splash
For bills to pay and chores to do and God, where hope and heartache clash
For more than we deserve, without reserve, goodness out-poured
For freedom to linger over a cup of tea, we thank Thee, Lord

For neighbours who are friends and ‘love thy neighbours’ flawless law
For New-day’s faithful second chance that mercy grants to humbled awe
For we-who-once-were-younger feeling comfortable in older skin
For breezes that lilt across leaves like bow over a violin

For masterpiece montages played on earth’s eastward and westward edge
Oh Lord, my God, when we see these we vow to keep faith’s earnest pledge
If these are but the outer fringes of what none have seen or heard
For welkin-inkwells, grass-blade quills, where poetry spills undeterred

For Favor bending over backwards to save us from ourselves
For rain-bejeweled woodlands hosting mushroom-sized fairies and elves  
For we who are our own worst enemy and yet our most devoted friend
For bygones we would change except for what they taught us in the end

For the fine art of love in spite of highest highs and lowest lows
For the divine partaking of heart-breaking thorn and healing rose
For quaking grit and shaking ‘sit’ as teenagers learn how to drive
For this and so much more, dear Lord we are thankful to be alive

For time that takes its tender toll but always only day by day
For morning-tides that roll the crumpled charge of yesterday away
For plain cocoons that hold and unfold butterflies and petal-wings
For this and so much more dear Lord, the dazzled poet sings and sings

© Janet Martin





Saturday, June 11, 2016

Picnic at the Park





Background music of shriek-laughter-chatter
Maple umbrellas invite passer-by
The sky is like a giant blue platter
Serving up sunshine and soft, dreamy sigh

Time is a thing to be kindly forgotten
Spread out a quilt, picnic basket and book
Be a small part of this world full of children
Tommy, take turns now, and Susie, don’t push

Bird-song and wind-song and brook-song, ah, beauty
Nature’s best minstrels perform tirelessly
Teasing our minds from time’s incessant duty
Wakening wonder where wishes would be

We are never too old to be young-ish
Let’s, you and I, linger until it is dark
For life is too short to be too old for picnics
Or peanut-butter sandwiches at the park

© Janet Martin

When I read this line ' Several weeks ago some of us met one of our blogging friends Rosella for a picnic in the park' found here, it immediately sparked a mood for a picnic in the park. 
Maybe tomorrow;-)?

Happy Saturday to you all!

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Forget It...

I'm pinin' for a pic-a-nic:)...after browsing through my Picnics book today.




Forget place-settings,
And wishes
And worries
Pack dishes but only
A goblet and plate
Forget to-do lists
Remember
A basket
Pack it with Simple Fare
Then climb that old gate
And find a kind willow
The grass, a green pillow
Spread out a big blanket
Then unwind...slo-o-o-w sigh
...and forget
What makes you fret
Break brown bread, sharp cheddar
Tip high thy filled goblet
And toast the blue sky

© Janet Martin

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Green



PAD Challenge day 19: choose a color for your poem title

We press through life’s marketplaces
Winter cold and summer heat
Holding hands and kissing faces
Arabesque of bittersweet

We fill baskets with life-moments
 Amethyst and baby’s breath
For we cannot see the fulcrum
Pivoting twixt life and death

…as we dash through fields of flowers
To a skyline out of reach
Save to sundry sweep of hours
Washing over brawny beach

We embrace, knowing tomorrow
Bids us suffer parting’s pain
Yet we cannot quench with sorrow
Love; and so we love again

Asking nothing of God’s favor
But perhaps, if He would deem
Here and there a little picnic
On our own wee patch o’ green

© Janet Martin


Thursday, July 19, 2012

Of Little Everythings



Of ruby lips and fingertips
Alight with eagerness
Of freckle-noses
Dandelion-roses
Contentment’s sweet caress
Of garden walks
Of balled-up socks
Of laundry-laden lines
Of teaching, reaching
Tenderness
From learning’s ageless vines
A wandering, pondering
Beautiful
Through living’s bitter-sweet
And knowing grace
Bestows its trace
In wild-blooms at our feet
Of forgiveness
And gentleness
Of simple-threaded bliss
Of realizing
Heaven’s glimpse
Is surely, purely this…
Ruby child-lips
And fingertips
Alight with eagerness
A mother’s/parent’s joy
Wee girl and boy
Contentment’s sweet caress

© Janet Martin

Matt (our son) asked me last night if I ever do anything. Then he laughed and re-iterated, ‘Well I know you baby-sit and you clean, but do you ever do anything else?! I grinned a little and winked; “h-m-m-m,” I said, “I think I cook once in a while.” He laughed, pondering my response for a moment before going up-stairs to bed.
p.s. Today they were all home and it is much cooler so we walked to the bush for a picnic...It reminded me of when they really were 'wee'...sigh:)


What our children see as ‘nothings’ is a parent’s ‘everything’.